M'Khiin: what a superb character!

My party consists of CHARNAME (berserker), Corwin, Glint, Voghlin, M'Khiin and Neera. I wanted to try the new characters, so I took them all as soon as I possibly could. And lo and behold: M'Khiin is by far and away the best one. What a surprise that was.

Corwin is good, a down-to-earth, dependable and straightforward character whose only flaw is in the rules: archers are way too overpowered, as a kit. It's not even funny. But I'll keep her nevertheless.

Glint is a bit of a joke in the Jan Jansen mould, but not nearly as funny. Still an ok character. I'm pretty sure the gnomes of Forgotten Realms are about to protest being portrayed only in this one way.

Voghlin is not a success. His voice is wrong (German instead of northern), his lines are shallow and I have yet to see him make a decent comment. Skald is also not a very good kit. The difference between the kits is actually obscene: just think of archer and inquisitor on the one hand and then skald and beast master on the other.

But M'Khiin oozes quality. Her voice is perfect: a world-weary woman, someone who has experienced a lifetime of hardship and maltreatment but still hasn't lost her essence or her spirit. The lines are written really well, and for some strange reason, they seem very authentic, coming from a rather simple but good soul. "Fall down now!" is one of my favorites. Also, the interactions you can sometimes get between M'Khiin and various spirit-like figures in the game are extremely interesting and very well done.

The only flaw with M'Khiin I have seen so far is that if you equip her with a shortbow, her sprite still shows her throwing her axe. But that's not too serious.

Would LOVE to see M'Khiin content in BG2, but maybe that's too much to ask for. I haven't got any specific M'Khiin quests yet, but maybe there's something to come.

To whoever is responsible for this character: Well done! I'm very impressed.

Comments

I agree with your love of M'Khiin. I love her simple, straightforward, no-nonsense wisdom. I think she's just great.

I can't comment in-depth about your dislike of Voghlin, as I haven't used him yet, but I would disagree that the skald is a bad kit. The combat bonuses skald song grants are kind of huge. Also, Nordic countries are still Germanic, so the accent doesn't seem too off to me.

M'Khiin is my personal favorite as well, and I am not a fan of Volghiln. Most BG1 characters are written with more depth than him, including BG1 Safana.

I disagree on the Skald, though. Granted, in ToB the HLAs render a skald as simply a bard with a +1 to atk/dam and a quarter the pickpocket, but until then the Skald is an ungodly powerful asset. In the right party. A heavy combat squad can rip encounter to shreds with a Skald's song, and the +1 to atk/dam includes shortbows, darts, and minute meteors. Throw in some summons on top, and let a non combatant contribute deal more damage per round than the best fighter in the group. And the HLA only comes into play in the latter half of BG2/ToB. The Skald's song earns way more than enough in full campaign game to be worth it, if you actually use it.

various spirit-like figures in the game are extremely interesting and very well done.

Are they? I found them to be rather disappointing.Ghost is mad and won't listen to me.M'Khiin can you help?Sure, hey ghost pay attention.Thanks for the help M'Khiin, back to me.

Definitely needed a modification to the voice to make it sound like something was actually happening.

But even with that I'd still say she's my favourite, even though I disagree with your opinions about the Skald and Corwin, I found Corwin to be very annoying. Especially her romance conversations which assumed a lot of things from what I was saying.

@Orangemoose: I agree, the romance conversations with Corwin don't work. A huge amount of assumptions was made, and things turned very black and white very quickly. There was a moment where I was quite annoyed with the game, because I was given the choice of saying either (essentially) "I'm very attracted to you" or "Let's just be friends". The only other option was to say something along the lines of "Life is just a game" (these may well have been the exact words), which seemed heartless, given how genuine and heartfelt Corwin had just been. But it was the only option I could in any way justify, and even that wasn't good. Apart from her romance, though, Corwin works really well.

Well, I liked M'Khiin's interactions with the spirits very much, especially because they were a surprise. They were equivalent to Haer'Dalis basically pointing out that he knows Yoshimo is a betrayer, or also Haer'Dalis using his wit to trick the beholder in the Sahuagin city. I loved those interjections. Yesterday, I had an encounter with a dying mushroom creature (damned if I remember their name...), and M'Khiin's interjection was, again, a nice surprise. I agree that they're not earth-shattering by any means, but I do like them a lot.

Are they? I found them to be rather disappointing.Ghost is mad and won't listen to me.M'Khiin can you help?Sure, hey ghost pay attention.Thanks for the help M'Khiin, back to me.

See, this is what I liked most about her. You expect her to do some mystical shaman stuff, but she just tells the ghost to pay attention. And because she's M'Khiin, the ghost listens. I love that. Reminds me of Granny Weatherwax, a bit.

M'Khiin is my personal favorite as well, and I am not a fan of Volghiln. Most BG1 characters are written with more depth than him, including BG1 Safana.

I disagree on the Skald, though. Granted, in ToB the HLAs render a skald as simply a bard with a +1 to atk/dam and a quarter the pickpocket, but until then the Skald is an ungodly powerful asset. In the right party. A heavy combat squad can rip encounter to shreds with a Skald's song, and the +1 to atk/dam includes shortbows, darts, and minute meteors. Throw in some summons on top, and let a non combatant contribute deal more damage per round than the best fighter in the group. And the HLA only comes into play in the latter half of BG2/ToB. The Skald's song earns way more than enough in full campaign game to be worth it, if you actually use it.

That and skald bonuses stack. So my charname skald and Voghiln with a melee heavy group were ripping everything to shreds.

So im casting raise dead on this thread. Let's get some love for M'Khiin. My last playthrough I sent her to wait in camp. The humans must have bullied her or something because she disappeared. Now with v.2.5 going through SOD again with M'Khiin and she's just great.

I couldn't find any recent threads about her, tactics or mods. So I'd like to know how to make her even better.

Things I've done already: give her paper dolls purple hair, change her animation in line with weapons.Things I'd like to do: give her a worg mount.Things I wouldn't want to touch with a bargepole... Give all her animations on screen, purple hair.

M'Khiin is very great. The only thing i could want is that they take the goblin race one step further and make more paperdoll options and have you be able to roll one =p. I know it's probably not feasible but hey one can dream!

Voghlin is not a success. His voice is wrong (German instead of northern)...

Voghiln is from Luskan, and I don't know that they canonically have Nordic accents there (they certainly could, but saying that it should absolutely be Nordic is incorrect). Actually, Dorn is from Luskan as well, so if anything he should sound like Dorn.

My party consists of CHARNAME (berserker), Corwin, Glint, Voghlin, M'Khiin and Neera. I wanted to try the new characters, so I took them all as soon as I possibly could. And lo and behold: M'Khiin is by far and away the best one. What a surprise that was.

Corwin is good, a down-to-earth, dependable and straightforward character whose only flaw is in the rules: archers are way too overpowered, as a kit. It's not even funny. But I'll keep her nevertheless.

Glint is a bit of a joke in the Jan Jansen mould, but not nearly as funny. Still an ok character. I'm pretty sure the gnomes of Forgotten Realms are about to protest being portrayed only in this one way.

Voghlin is not a success. His voice is wrong (German instead of northern), his lines are shallow and I have yet to see him make a decent comment. Skald is also not a very good kit. The difference between the kits is actually obscene: just think of archer and inquisitor on the one hand and then skald and beast master on the other.

But M'Khiin oozes quality. Her voice is perfect: a world-weary woman, someone who has experienced a lifetime of hardship and maltreatment but still hasn't lost her essence or her spirit. The lines are written really well, and for some strange reason, they seem very authentic, coming from a rather simple but good soul. "Fall down now!" is one of my favorites. Also, the interactions you can sometimes get between M'Khiin and various spirit-like figures in the game are extremely interesting and very well done.

The only flaw with M'Khiin I have seen so far is that if you equip her with a shortbow, her sprite still shows her throwing her axe. But that's not too serious.

Would LOVE to see M'Khiin content in BG2, but maybe that's too much to ask for. I haven't got any specific M'Khiin quests yet, but maybe there's something to come.

To whoever is responsible for this character: Well done! I'm very impressed.

Very much agree. The M'Khiin NPC addition was a welcome surprise, great to see Beamdog mixing up our play experience with goblins and vampires and who knows what else?

My party consists of CHARNAME (berserker), Corwin, Glint, Voghlin, M'Khiin and Neera. I wanted to try the new characters, so I took them all as soon as I possibly could. And lo and behold: M'Khiin is by far and away the best one. What a surprise that was.

Corwin is good, a down-to-earth, dependable and straightforward character whose only flaw is in the rules: archers are way too overpowered, as a kit. It's not even funny. But I'll keep her nevertheless.

Glint is a bit of a joke in the Jan Jansen mould, but not nearly as funny. Still an ok character. I'm pretty sure the gnomes of Forgotten Realms are about to protest being portrayed only in this one way.

Voghlin is not a success. His voice is wrong (German instead of northern), his lines are shallow and I have yet to see him make a decent comment. Skald is also not a very good kit. The difference between the kits is actually obscene: just think of archer and inquisitor on the one hand and then skald and beast master on the other.

But M'Khiin oozes quality. Her voice is perfect: a world-weary woman, someone who has experienced a lifetime of hardship and maltreatment but still hasn't lost her essence or her spirit. The lines are written really well, and for some strange reason, they seem very authentic, coming from a rather simple but good soul. "Fall down now!" is one of my favorites. Also, the interactions you can sometimes get between M'Khiin and various spirit-like figures in the game are extremely interesting and very well done.

The only flaw with M'Khiin I have seen so far is that if you equip her with a shortbow, her sprite still shows her throwing her axe. But that's not too serious.

Would LOVE to see M'Khiin content in BG2, but maybe that's too much to ask for. I haven't got any specific M'Khiin quests yet, but maybe there's something to come.

To whoever is responsible for this character: Well done! I'm very impressed.

Very much agree. The M'Khiin NPC addition was a welcome surprise, great to see Beamdog mixing up our play experience with goblins and vampires and who knows what else?

I'm going to join this choir. I'm not even that far into SOD yet but I've liked everything coming out of her mouth so far and the banter she just had with Edwin was so golden that I just had to laugh. Definitely a fan of this character.